India Tells Tech Firms To Protect User Privacy, Prevent Abuse

Technology firms must protect user privacy and prevent abuse of their platforms, India’s IT minister said on Thursday, speaking as the government draws up a data privacy law and seeks to push companies to store more data locally. From a report: Federal Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said he wanted Indians to have access to more technology platforms but said this should not undermine user privacy. “I have only one caveat — it must be safe and secure, it must safeguard the privacy rights of the individual and you must make extra efforts that people don’t abuse the system,” Prasad told industry executives at a gathering organized by Alphabet’s Google in New Delhi. India’s 1.3 billion people and their massive consumption of mobile data has turned it into a key growth market for U.S. technology giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. India has already forced foreign payment firms such as Mastercard and Visa to store data locally.